


Yeses

by howardently



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M, Post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:53:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howardently/pseuds/howardently
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rae agrees to one more Night of Yeses with Finn the summer after her first year at Bristol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yeses

“Okay.” She says, swallowing the last bitter sips of her pint and thumping the glass back on the table. The alcohol burns as it goes down her throat, or maybe that’s just her nerves. She breathes out a slow, calming breath. It doesn’t help. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Yeah?” He asks, and she can hear the hopeful lilt in his voice. A wide but somehow cautious smile slides across his face. “Are you sure? I know things aren’t-”

“Yeah, no, I’m sure. Let’s do it. A night of yeses.” She tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite work right. God, why’s she so nervous? It’s just Finn. They used to do this all the time. It’s just Finn.

He stands up from the table, holds out a hand to help her up. She stares at it for a minute, thinks how strange it is that his hand can be a metaphor and just a hand all at once. She shakes her head at herself; she’s spent too much time with her nose in books these last few months. She puts her fingers in his palm and he yanks her up. She doesn’t bump against him.

“So, what’s first?” He asks, dropping her hand. He used to hang on to it, but then, he used to do a lot of things.

“Booze, definitely.” She says, then shrugs on her jacket, heads towards the door. When she glances behind her, Finn’s grin is like a moment frozen in time, like its own yes. Her heart thumps painfully in her chest.

—

They buy cheap wine. Neither of them actually drink wine, and she knows that this particular one will be sickly sweet and make her head pound in the morning, but they buy it anyway. The label has a rooftop illuminated by a yellow moon and hazy stars. Seems appropriate. She holds the bottle in her hands, just staring dumbly, until he puts a hand on her shoulder and reaches around her to take it. He nods thoughtfully, and she laughs.

“Have you become a wine guru in the last six months?” She teases, and he raises his head haughtily, adjusting imaginary glasses.

“As I matter of fact, I have, young lady.” He sniffs, looks at her through mockingly lidded eyes. “I can tell you that this one is oaky with undertones of truffle and black licorice. It pairs well with…” He glances around the aisles of the off-license quickly, grabs something from the shelf behind her. His arm brushes her side as he moves and she represses a shiver. “Crisps. This oaky wine goes well with crisps. Salt and vinegar, of course.”

“Of course.” Rae dissolves into giggles and Finn adjusts his imaginary glasses once more, chin still high, before he falls into laughter as well. She feels warm everywhere, like somehow his laugh has crawled inside of her and melted something she hadn’t really known was frozen. For a second, they just stand there smiling at each other, and she thinks maybe he’s going to reach forward and touch her like he used to, brush her hair back from her face and glide his thumb along her cheek. She’s not sure how to feel about that, if she should look away, but before she’s made the decision, he’s started moving down the aisle toward the register. Rae stays behind a moment, looking at her shoes and breathing. Just breathing.

 _That’s all I want this to be_ , she tells herself.  _Just breathing._

—

She’d forgotten how much she hated this part right at the beginning, the rushing of her blood, the paranoid certainty that everything was going to go wrong at any moment. Some people get a rush from the thrill, Finn included, but she’d always hated that pinched heat at the back of her neck. She’d always felt like people were watching her anyway, and it only got worse when she was doing something wrong. It’s always worst at the very beginning.

But Finn glances back and he’s beaming, gloriously happy and alive. He reaches a hand back to help pull her through, the other still holding up the fencing for her. She scrambles through without taking his hand. She doesn’t need that reminder, that evidence that he’d always pulled her through whatever life threw at her. She does fine on her own now. But her hair catches in the chain link, and he laughs and reaches to free her. She straightens on the other side of the fence, rubs her palms against her skirt. She’s wearing tights now instead of leggings, and she’s glad because it’s humid and sticky, and because she can show those flashes of skin through the pattern now and be okay with it. Finn hasn’t looked, at least not that she’s noticed.

She takes off her jacket and shoves it into her bag with the wine. She tugs her hair up into a messy knot on the back of her head and exhales. It’s better with bare arms and a bare neck. She doesn’t feel so much like she’s suffocating under the heat and the paranoia. Finn scuffs his feet, eyes downcast. She cocks her head, wondering. She used to be able to know what all his movements meant; she used to be an expert in the body language of Finn Nelson. She wonders if he’s changed now, or if she has.

“Ready?” He asks, holding out his hand again. She thinks of the last time they were here, how he’d peeled his shirt off over his head, thrown his arms out wide into the open air. She’d loved him so much then.

“Ready.” She grabs onto him, and together they run across the scrubby brush of the park, sticking close to the line of trees as they get further from the fence. She feels like a different creature, like a wild animal, sprinting from shadow to shadow, heart in her throat. It’s exhilarating. She hadn’t forgotten that part.

They’re both breathless and giggling as they press their backs up against the last trees, safe in the shadow cast by the grove behind them. Ahead are the big concrete steps they have to climb to get to the pathway along the wall, and the steps are bathed in the orange glow of the safety lights above, exposed. This is the scary part. Finn looks at her with a wolfish smile, then whoops and takes off running. She hisses a shh at his retreating back, then shakes her head and follows him. Her hair streaks behind her as she runs, backpack thumping against her.

Finn grabs her as she breaches the steps and nears the safety of another shadow. He spins her, presses her back into the reservoir wall, presses himself against her, surrounds her. He keeps a hand on the warm concrete beside her head, presses the other against his lips. Her heart pounds, her breath rasping in and out of her lungs. He’s close, so close, and her body can’t help but remember a thousand other instances just like this. She has to force herself not to lean forward, has to restrain herself from giving into sense memory and kissing him. He’s looking around and misses her struggle, shows no signs of having his own. Can his body have forgotten hers so quickly?

He raises his eyebrows over wide eyes when he turns to look at her. “There’s a security guard, I think. We don’t want to attract attention.” He whispers, still tight up against her. She nods. “C’mon.”

They sneak along the wall single file, careful to stay in the strip of darkness, jog around the corner to where they find the rusty ladder leading up. He goes up before her, glances back over his shoulder with reassuring smiles every few rungs. The ladder groans once and they both freeze. His laughter gets carried away with the breeze. It’s a long ways up, and Rae is sweating when they finally reach the low wall blocking off the lip of the reservoir. Once she’s levered herself up, she shrugs off her backpack and leans back against the wall a couple of feet from the ladder. It’s cooler up here, with the breeze and the faint mists coming from the water below. Finn stalks over to the side closest to the water, hops onto the ledge and puts his toes out over the drop into the dark water below. She hates when he does that, how he’s so cavalier about the edges of things.

“Finn.” He turns at the sound of her reproof, and something catches in her chest at the sight of him like that- the breeze ruffling his hair, bathed in darkness, fearless and young and free. She shakes her head, tells herself that it’s just that he looks the same, that it’s another sense memory of loving him. She digs into her bag, pulls out the wine and her jacket to sit on.

“Sorry.” He murmurs, crossing the walkway to sit beside her. He pulls a swiss army knife from his pocket and takes the bottle from her. “I forgot how it makes you nervous.”

She frowns as she watches him uncork the bottle. He didn’t forget, she thinks. Maybe he just wanted to know if she still cares. She has an impulse to touch his knee, but she pushes it down and leans back against the wall. It’s warm still from the hot June sun, even though it’s long since set. Finn crows as he uncorks the bottle, unwinds the cork and offers it to her. She smiles as she tucks it into her bag. He doesn’t forget.

He takes a long sip of the wine straight from the bottle, wincing a little before handing it to her. It’s warm and she shakes her head at them for not choosing a bottle from the cooler, but takes a sip anyway. It’s not bad, sweet and dark and bitter all at once.

“Truth or dare.” He asks as she hands it back and he takes another drink. He settles back against the wall, legs bent up and crossed as he hunches over them. She wonders if he doesn’t feel sort of uncomfortable too.

“Aren’t we a little old for truth or dare?” She asks derisively, waving her hand in front of her to push the idea away. Finn scoffs and knocks an elbow into her side.

“C’mon. It’s the night of yeses, remember? You have to play. Truth or dare?”

She pauses, staring out into the night. The stars seem brighter here, infinite reflected in the water. She wonders if this isn’t the reason he’d asked for yeses, if there are truths he has to get from her somehow. The thought makes her feel sad and hot and desperate.

“Dare.”

“Hmm.” He mumbles, rubbing at his jaw. She turns her head to watch him, so she can see the idea steal across his face. He grins. “I dare you to sing something. A real song, not like a nursery rhyme or something, but sing for real.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but something flutters in her stomach. She used to sing to him sometimes after he’d fallen asleep. She wonders if he knows. “Finn…” She pleads. She’d wanted tonight to be about now, and here they were stuck reliving the past.

“You chose dare.” He shrugs. “You want to choose truth instead?”

“Fine.” She grumps, flicking though her head for what to sing. The things she sings to herself in the shower won’t do. It has to be something easy, something light. She settles for the Cure, softly croons ‘Just Like Heaven’ into the darkness without looking at him. Still, she can feel his eyes on her even with his head tilted back against the wall. When she’s done, there’s a pause where the only sounds are the splashing of water against the wall and their breath. She clears her throat. “Truth or dare.”

He’s quiet for a long moment before he answers in a gruff voice, “Dare.”

Rae takes a sip of the wine as she considers her dare. “I dare you to…” and then she has it. She grins triumphantly. “to do your choreographed Backstreet Boys dance.”

“Fucking Archie!” Finn groans and Rae giggles. “He’s got such a fucking big mouth.”

“You chose dare.” She taunts, throwing his words back. “Do you want to change to truth?”

Finn looks at her then, expressionless but searching. His eyebrows move but she doesn’t know what it means. Finally he shrugs, levers himself up until he’s standing in front of her a safe distance from the edge. He stays still for a couple of seconds, then launches into a jerky and complicated dance with crazy movements of his arms and moonwalking. Rae can barely breathe for laughing so hard. She’s doubled over, clutching the neck of the wine for support by the time he throws himself back down beside her.

“Oh, sure, laugh it up, girl.” Her giggles subside; it’s been so long since he’s called her ‘girl.’ “Just remember whose turn it is next. Truth or dare.”

She holds up her hands, makes her eyes go wide and pleading. “Go easy on me, okay?” He shakes his head, eyebrow raised. “Dare.”

Finn taps his finger against his lips, a devious grin curling them up. Rae swallows, takes another sip of the wine. The bottle’s half empty already. How’d that happen? She feels the warmth spreading through her, and she doesn’t know if it’s the night, or the wine, or the embarrassment, or him.

“Sing for me again.”

It’s nowhere near as bad as she expected, and a laugh escapes her. “I already did that. You have to pick something else.”

“Hey, it’s my dare.” Finn counters, and then he shifts so that his body is facing her, legs crossed underneath him, back still half pressed against the wall. She tilts her head, confused at why he wants her to do this again.  **“Please, just… one more time, okay? Once more and then I’ll leave you alone.”** He pleads.

It works. It’s always worked when he’s gone soft on her. “I highly doubt that.” She scoffs, but she’s nodding. “But if that’s your dare, then whatever.”

She rubs her hands over the ridges of her tights as she tries to think of another song. Her head is curiously, stubbornly blank of everything other than ‘Wonderwall.’ It’s a dangerous choice, full of history and meaning and unsaid things, but she genuinely can’t think of anything else. She blames the booze.

Finn sighs softly as she begins to sing, and she risks a glance over at him. His eyes are closed tightly, his cheeks pink. She finds the notes faltering, her voice trembling, so she forces herself to look away until it’s over. She thinks when she’s done that it felt daring.

“Truth or dare.” She breathes without looking over. His arm is pressed against hers now, his body warm against her.

“Truth.” It’s quiet and soft, and Rae bites her lip, but her question bursts forth as soon as it has permission.

“Are you happy?”

It’s been burning in her all year, on the lonely nights in her dorm room and in times when she’s felt joyous enough to burst. It’s been on the tip of her tongue in calls to Archie, deleted from every email she’s ever sent him. She thinks that if he just says yes, if he’s okay, she can let all of this go, let him go, and move on. Live her life.

He thinks for a long time, fingers shifting against each other in his lap. When he answers, it’s almost a whisper, only slightly firmer than the wind. “No. Truth or dare.”

“You’re not?” She turns towards him, shoulder pressing into his. She can feel the sting of tears in her eyes, knows they’re doing that big, glazed thing. But he doesn’t look up, just keeps staring at his hands, forehead furrowed.

“You only get one question. Truth or dare.”

“Finn.” She pleads, but he shakes his head. She takes another drink, hands the bottle over and watches his throat as he swallows it down. If he can be brave, so can she. “Truth.”

He keeps his eyes down, hands twisting and turning. The crickets chirping in the grass below seem loud, like they too have to express their distress at the way this conversation has turned. “Do you think of me in Bristol?”

This time, she doesn’t hold back when she thinks of touching him. She reaches to still his hands, squeezes his fingers in hers. His whole body tenses, and when he looks up, she can see that this is the question that’s been burning him.

“All the time.” She says gently, and he blinks back tears as he nods at his lap. She pushes through the stupid game. “Tell me why you’re not happy.”

He looks up at her helplessly, shrugs. Her heart pounds painfully in her chest. Please, God, don’t let it be because of her.

“Lots of reasons.” He mutters, looking away. He stands and walks towards the other side to stare out into the dark water. She follows reluctantly, not wanting to get close to the edge, but needing to be near him. “I miss the gang. I hate my sodding job. I think I’m just a miserable person. The only time I’ve ever been happy was… Well.”

He hops up and puts his toes over the edge again, arms out wide for balance. She grabs onto the back of his shirt. He spins around. “Your turn. Truth or dare.”

“Do we really need to keep doing this?”

“Truth or dare, Rae.” His eyes glint in the moonlight. She pulls at his shirt again and he steps down from the ledge.

“Fine. Dare.” She squares her shoulders, crosses her arms under her breasts. She’s got to get this back under control.

He cocks his head and considers her, and somehow he seems harder than he had than just an hour before. Where was carefree, beautiful Finn who’d laughed as they’d raced over the ground?

“Okay, I dare you to stand on the ledge and yell out to Stamford.” He steps closer into her space and she finds herself retreating.  He laughs. “Or you could always change your mind and choose truth?”

She’s very sure that whatever question he’d have for her is one she doesn’t want to answer. She straightens up and shuffles towards the edge, keeping her feet on the flat ground and peering over. The water churns only a few feet below her feet, splashing up against the wall with soft smacks. It’s enough to make her head spin and her blood thrum in her veins.  She glances over at him, but he shoots her a challenging smile. So she does it. She puts one foot on the ledge slowly, levers herself up and places the other firmly. She holds out her arms at her sides, sick for a moment as she feels a lurch of fear and gravity. But once it settles, she’s surprisingly okay. It’s not that bad, kind of empowering. She feels strong, literally on top of the world.

“Screw you, Stamford!” She yells. It echoes a little over the water, and this too feels surprisingly good. She bends her knees and keeps going. “You’re small and shitty and full of twats! Even though I hate it, I still somehow miss you!”

And then Finn’s grabbed her hand and tugged her down from the ledge, and she’s sagging against him, all spent adrenaline and alcohol buzz. But Finn’s smiling again, and he’s solid and she knows he’s okay to lean on sometimes. He hugs her, laughs over her shoulder and into her hair. She feels amazing, and suddenly she knows she’s gonna kiss him, fuck the consequences. This is a kissing moment, anyone anywhere would think so.

Except Finn, it would seem. He leans back to ask with laughter in his voice, “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? I told you not to attract attention, and then you go screaming into the night like a maniac!”

“You dared me!” She protests, trying not to think about the fact that his arms are still around her.

His lips are stained from the wine when he replies, “Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d do it!”

“I’ve never backed down from a dare!” Somehow, the mood is shifting again and she can’t quite keep track. His arms have slipped low around her waist, and he pulls her tighter until her hips are pressed firmly against his.

Finn peels a hand off of her back and moves it to push back a few hairs that have escaped in the breeze. She swallows, watches as his eyes turn the color of melted chocolate. His thumb is hovering over her cheekbone as he examines her, as he looks for permission.

“Rae.” He whispers. “I dare you…”

“It’s not your turn.” She protests weakly. Her hands have somehow found their way to his biceps and are snaking their way up towards his collar bone.

“I don’t care.” He breathes, and he’s leaning closer so that she can feel his trembling exhale over her cheeks. She licks her lip, slides her hand up the back of his neck into the little tail of his hair that she’s always loved. And then slowly, like sinking, his lips move towards hers.

“Hey!” A voice shouts, and they both jump at the sudden noise and the beam of a flashlight illuminating them. “What are you doing up there?  **You have no right to be there without permission!**  You’re trespassing!”

It takes a moment before they can process what’s going on, before they understand that the voice belongs to the security guard running towards them along the top of the reservoir wall.

“Shit.” Finn breathes, and Rae laughs.

“ **I think we’ve attracted attention, all right!”**  She giggles, and they scramble to grab their stuff and jog towards the ladder. Rae goes down first, as fast as she can manage with her fear of falling, her backpack slung over a single shoulder, jacket spilling from it to land on the dirt below with a smack. Finn holds the nearly empty wine bottle in his mouth as he takes the rungs two at a time. Rae bounces on her toes beneath him, calling “Hurry, hurry!”

The beam from the guard’s flashlight grows brighter above them as Finn drops down and grabs her hand. They streak off through the night, breathless laughter trailing behind them.

“Stop!” The guard yells when he’s halfway down the ladder and sees them fleeing down the concrete steps. “Trespassers!”

Rae thinks she’s never run faster in her life. Granted, she’s not really a runner, but still. She feels madly, gloriously alive, running through the lit areas, no longer hiding in the shadows. Finn keeps a hold of her, the bottle in his other hand, wine occasionally sloshing out to leave red spots on his jeans. Her heart is pounding from the exertion and also from the joy of being here with him in this moment.

They get to the hole in the gate and Finn holds it up for her, scanning the area behind him. They appear to have lost the guard, but he whispers “c’mon, c’mon” anyways as she ducks through the fence. He shoots through after her, pulling the fencing closed behind him. He gives her a wide-eyed grin when they’re both out, and then they’re running again through the trees towards where he’s parked.

Once under the cover of a dense patch of trees, they slow and stop, both bending over their knees and panting. Rae can’t help but laugh breathlessly. That was close. That was incredible.

Amazingly, Finn’s still holding the wine bottle and they take turns sucking at it until it’s empty and she can put it back in her bag. They stand in the safe stillness of the trees and laugh, heads tilted back towards the sky.  _Yes,_  she thinks,  _yes yes yes yes yes._

—

There’s a strange sadness around the edges of everything when they’re in his car again. She’s drunk, so she puts it off as that, but she knows that’s not really it. The adventure is over, the night is over. He’s going to take her home now and this will be the end of them for another visit. They only have these single nights, unexpected eddies in the currents of their separate lives.

They’re still a little breathless, so they just sit back in their seats and breathe in silence for a while. There’s no music for once, but they don’t need it. Her heart and the breeze and the night noises and their breaths make a perfect soundtrack.

Finn turns his head, rests the side of his forehead against his headrest and looks at her. She shifts in her seat to echo his position, an automatic response leftover from the days when they mirrored each other efforlessly. The thought makes her sad, so she looks down at her lap. She watches as he reaches over and curls his hand around hers.

“Rae.” It’s not quite a whisper, but it’s the hush of nighttime conversations in silent still places. It’s the hush of spent adrenaline and melancholy lurking. She looks up to see his soft sad smile, his dark eyes holding things she doesn’t want to face just yet. She squeezes his hand.

“ **You coming back here with me really means a lot, after what I did to you.”**  He says, and she studies his face. “I don’t deserve it, don’t deserve another shot with you, I know.”

“Finn…” She pleads, heart breaking but for what she doesn’t know.

“I hurt you, and I didn’t fight for us.” He shakes his head, looks down at their hands. “I don’t deserve another chance, but I want one anyway. And even if you say no, even if you weren’t about to kiss me like I thought, I’m still so glad we had tonight.”

Her heart is pounding so hard that she’s sure he can hear it. She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to think. She’ll leave in ten weeks, go back to her life in Bristol. And when she’s there, when she’s alone in her dorm room or with friends at the pub or surrounded by books in the library, it’s not so hard not to be in love with him anymore. When he’s that far away, less Finn than just her idea of Finn, it’s easier. It would be so much easier to leave him there.

But she’d known when he suggested it at the pub tonight, known as he blew that plume of smoke into the air and looked at her sidelong and offered one more night of yeses, that accepting this night would be accepting loving him again. Because she can’t see him without loving him. And she’d already said yes.

“Ask me.” She says, and he tilts his head, confused; big lonely eyes locked on hers. “It’s the night of yeses, remember? So, ask me.”

He shakes his head, but he hasn’t let go of her hands. “No, Rae. It’s not a game. I don’t want it that way. I don’t want you to say yes because you have to, yes just for tonight.”

“Finn, ask me.” She pleads. Her eyes are brimming with tears, so she keeps them down until she can’t stand the silence, can’t stand not looking anymore. He’s shaking his head, jaw tight, nostrils flared, his own eyes damp. She exhales shakily. “Ask me. Please, ask me.”

He jerks his head up, a pair of tears shaking loose to roll down his cheeks. He brushes them away dismissively. His voice is croaky and quiet, but he smiles as he asks, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.” She says firmly, nodding once.

He licks his lips, draws his eyebrows together, plays with her fingers beneath his. “Do you still love me?”

She waits until he looks up, and the silence draws out, thick and slow like taffy being pulled. He looks like she could shatter him, like she holds his whole life, all his yeses in her hands with that single question. She raises her chin, looks him dead in the eyes.

“Yes.” He closes his eyes, and she races to continue. “I thought I could get away from it, that if I was far away, it wouldn’t be so much… But, **every time I see you, I fall in love with you all over again.**  I still love you. So much.”

As soon as he opens his eyes, his hands are in her hair, pulling her into him, crushing his lips to hers. It’s frantic and desperate and messy, and she feels alive again, feels like she’s wild and streaking through the night. She claws at him, starving to touch him, consumed by the longing she’s pushed back all these months. He draws her closer, presses in, all hands and tongue and teeth. Somehow she pushes back his seat and straddles him, desperate to be as near to him as possible.

They tug and shed and she’s holding him close as he nips and kisses her chest. The heat slows for a moment as he looks up at her above him; her hands still in his hair and his chin presses into her breastbone as they lock eyes.

“I love you.” He says raggedly, more tears spilling from his eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Rae nods, smoothes her fingers through his hair; no longing inciting, but soothing. He wraps his arms around her waist, pulls her closer. It’s back again, the sadness around the edges, so she pets him, cradles his head against her. They’re skin to skin, but it’s a different kind of need now. She wants him to make love to her, to look in her eyes as they sink together.

“Let’s go home.” She says softly, and he nods faintly, looking up at her with luminous eyes. She bends to kiss him, slow and gentle, tender and caring. He grips her head, keeps her close for a long moment, then releases her. Rae crawls back over to her seat, tugs on her discarded shirt. Finn starts the engine.

“Yes.” He murmurs, turning to gift her a careless smile.


End file.
